Large fluid containers are typically comprised of rectangular or cylindrical steel tanks which are filled with a fluid material, such as water. Conventional steel tanks or fluid containers include vertical side walls which consist of flat or planar panels which are strengthened by bars or beams that are located at intervals along the panels to reduce the free span area of the panels to thereby reduce the flexural stresses in the panels or side walls. Other conventional fluid containers include side walls wherein the panels are deformed or corrugated to create beams within the panels.
Thus, conventional side walls for large fluid containers are constructed so that the panels and beams are stressed in flexure and are designed by traditional flexure formulas to achieve optimum economy with respect to the total weight of the panels and beams.
The total weight of the fluid container is directly related to the cost of the fluid container. Thus, there is a need in the fluid container field for reducing the overall weight of such large fluid containers to thereby reduce the overall cost thereof.
The present invention overcomes many of the disadvantages inherent in the above-described side walls of large fluid containers by utilizing the weight of the fluid material within the fluid container to compress the vertically extending beams of the fluid container. By compressing the vertically extending beams of the fluid container the strength of the container is significantly increased and the free span area of the panels between the beams can be increased. Thus, the number of vertically extending beams per foot of wall and the thickness of the panels is decreased to thereby reduce the overall weight of the fluid container. In the present invention, the panels are generally arcuate so that when the fluid container is filled with fluid they are stressed in tension as well as flexure to thereby compress the vertically extending beams to increase the strength thereof and reduce the amount of material needed to adequately construct the fluid container. Therefore, use of the present invention results in considerable savings in the cost of fabricating large fluid containers.